Legal aspects to take care of while developing a mobile app

Mobile technology is growing in popularity with each passing day and with the comprehensive use of smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices, there is noticed an incredible development in the design, development and production of applications for these mobile devices.

Referred as “apps” these applications are highly popular and are used in varying domains, from banking to shopping, online news and airline check-in. With the help of these applications, the companies are endowed with extraordinary capabilities and get to use mobile technology in a manner that they get to reach existing and new customers while helping with the internal operations of their company.

Sign an NDA: It’s always best to sign an NDA with your app vendor as this is the right mean to safeguard your business secrets and data going public as an NDA will legally bind your app vendor. Or else there might be fear of the vendor revealing business secrets and data to your competitors.

Intellectual Property Rights: Also referred as IP, Intellectual Property Rights are all the elements used during the process of developing or promoting your app, like app designs, graphics, app name, app logo, source code, etc. It’s necessary to protect the intellectual rights of the applications and for the same you must get in touch with the Intellectual Property Office so that they can execute a search before registering the protection of a new app. This will protect you against unauthorized access to factors like source code, icons, documentation, icon name, programming snippets and images.

IP Ownership & Copyrights: During the development, your app will pass through a series of smart processes, like functional descriptions, wire frames and documentation. You need to take care of every little detail to ensure any issues in the future and you will have the rights to sue the vendor lest it’s unable to meet your needs.

Advertising: Advertising law considerations for app are same as for websites, e-mail or other online and networked communications, as the communications must comply with:

There are several of state laws that regulate commercial text messages. The Federal Trade Commission’s Truth-in-Advertising laws require that all information about the app be truthful and complete. Other state-specific laws, and the laws of foreign countries, can apply.

At the same time, the company needs to consider significant advertising and promotion laws in connection with:

Serving third-party advertising through or in connection with the app.

Advertising or promoting the app.

Conducting or promoting contests in or through the app.

Distribution: It’s necessary to go for the right app stores and mobile platform provider to distribute your app. Apple App Store, Google Play, and The Microsoft Windows Phone Marketplace are counted among the largest app stores and platform providers.